Before passing on to the times in which the merits of a free farmer-class, from military and political points of view, became a matter of general and conscious consideration, it is desirable to refer briefly to the recorded cases of agricultural serfdom in Greek states. For the rustic serf is a type quite distinct from the free farmer, the hired labourer, or the slave; though the language of some writers is loose, and does not clearly mark the distinction. Six well-known cases present themselves, in connexion with Sparta, Crete, Argos, Thessaly, Syracuse, and Heraclea on the Pontus. Into the details of these systems it is not necessary to enter, interesting though many of them are. The important feature common to them all is the delegation of agricultural labour. A stronger or better-organized people become masters of a weaker population, conquering their country by force of arms, and sparing the conquered on certain terms. The normal effect of the compact is that the conquerors are established as a ruling warrior class, whose subsistence is provided by the labour of the subject people. These subjects remain on the land as farmers, paying a fixed quota of their produce to their masters. Some are serfs of the state, and pay their dues to the state authorities: some are serfs of individuals, and pay to their lords. In either case they are strictly attached to the land, and cannot be sold out of the country. This clearly marks off the serf from the slave held in personal bondage. In some cases certainly, probably in all, the warrior class (at least the wealthier of them) had also slaves for their own personal service. The serf-system differs from a caste-system. Both, it is true, are hereditary systems, or have a strong tendency to become so. The ruling class do not easily admit deserving subjects into their own ranks. And they take precautions to hinder the degradation of their equals into lower conditions through poverty. The warrior’s land-lot (κλᾶρος), the sale of which is forbidden, is a favourite institution for the purpose. That such warrior aristocracies could not be kept up in vigour for an indefinite time, was to be proved by experience. Their duration depended on external as well as internal conditions. Hostile invasion might destroy the efficiency of state regulations, however well adapted to keep the serfs under control. Sparta always feared her Helots, and it was essential to keep an enemy out of Laconia. Early in the history of Syracuse the unprivileged masses were supported by the serfs in their rising against the squatter-lords, the γαμόροι whose great estates represented the allotments of the original settlers. In Crete and Thessaly matters were complicated by lack of a central authority. There were a number of cities: subordination and cooperation were alike hard to secure, and the history of both groups is a story of jealousy, collisions, and weakness. The Thessalian Penestae often rebelled. The two classes of Cretan[96] serfs (public and private) were kept quiet partly by rigid exclusion from all training of a military kind, partly by their more favourable condition: but the insular position of Crete was perhaps a factor of equal importance. The long control of indigenous barbarian serfs by the city of Heraclea was probably the result of similar causes.
But in all these cases it is conquest that produces the relation between the tiller of the soil and his overlord. Whether the serf is regarded as a weaker Greek or as a Barbarian (non-Greek) is not at present the main question from my point of view. The notion of castes, belonging to the same society and influenced by the same racial and religious traditions, but each performing a distinct function—priestly military agricultural etc.—as in ancient India, is another thing altogether. Caste separates functions, but the division is in essence collateral. Serfdom is a delegation of functions, and is a compulsory subordination. That the Greeks of the seventh and sixth centuries BC were already becoming conscious of a vital difference between other races and themselves, is fairly certain. It was soon to express itself in the common language. Contact with Persia was soon to crystallize this feeling into a moral antipathy, a disgust and contempt that found voice in the arrogant claim that while nature’s law justifies the ruling of servile Barbarians by free Greeks, a reversal of the relation is an unnatural monstrosity. Yet I cannot discover that Greeks ever gave up enslaving brother Greeks. Callicratidas in the field and Plato in his school might protest against the practice; it still remained the custom in war to sell as slaves those, Greek or Barbarian, whom the sword had spared. We shall also find cases in which the remnant of the conquered were left in their homes but reduced to the condition of cultivating serfs.
Among the little that is known of the ancient Etruscans, whose power was once widely extended in Italy, is the fact that they dwelt in cities and ruled a serf population who lived chiefly in the country. The ruling race were apparently invaders not akin to any of the Italian stocks: their subjects probably belonged to the old Ligurian race, in early times spread over a large part of the peninsula. That the Etruscan cities recognized a common interest, but in practice did not support each other consistently, was the chief cause of their gradual weakening and final fall. Noble lords with warlike traditions had little bent for farm life or sympathy with the serfs who tilled the soil. The two classes seem to have kept to their own[97] languages, and the Etruscan gradually died out under the supremacy of Rome.
VII. HERODOTUS.
Herodotus, writing in the first half of the fifth century BC, partly recording the results of his own travels, partly dependent on the work of his predecessors, is a witness of great value. In him we find the contrast and antipathy[98] of Greek and Barbarian an acknowledged fact, guiding and dominating Greek sentiment. Unhappily he yields us very little evidence bearing on the present subject. To slavery and slave-trade he often refers without comment: these are matters of course. The servile character of oriental peoples subject to Persia is contemptuously described[99] through the mouth of the Greek queen of Halicarnassus. Nor does he spare the Ionian Greeks, whose jealousies and consequent inefficiency made them the unworthy tools of Persian ambition; a sad contrast to those patriotic Greeks of old Hellas who, fired by the grand example of Athens, fought for their freedom and won it in the face of terrible odds. The disgust—a sort of physical loathing—with which the free Greek, proud of training his body to perfection, regarded corporal mutilation as practised in the East, is illustrated by such passages[100] as that in which the Persians are astounded at the Greek athletic competitions for a wreath of olive leaves, and that in which he coolly tells the story of the eunuch’s revenge. But all this, interesting as giving us his point of view, does not help us in clearing up the relations of free and slave labour. As for handicrafts, it is enough to refer to the well-known passage[101] in which, while speaking of Egypt, he will not decide whether the Greeks got their contempt for manual trades from the Egyptians or not. That the Greeks, above all the Spartans, do despise χειρωναξίαι, is certain; but least true of the Corinthians. Barbarians in general respect the warrior class among their own folk and regard manual trades as ignoble. So the source of Greek prejudice is doubtful. That the craftsmen are free is clear from the whole context. It is remarkable that in enumerating seven classes of the Egyptian population he mentions no class[102] as devoted to the tillage of the soil, but two of herdsmen, in charge of cattle and swine. Later authorities mention[103] the γεωργοί, and connect them with the military class, rightly, it would seem: for Herodotus[104] refers to the farms granted by the kings to this class. They are farmer-soldiers. It would seem that they were free, so far as any Egyptian could be called free, and worked their land themselves. If this inference be just, we may observe that a Greek thought it a fact worth noting. Was this owing to the contrast[105] offered by systems of serfage in the Greek world?
It is curious that wage-labour is hardly ever directly mentioned. In describing[106] the origin of the Macedonian kings, who claimed descent from an Argive stock, he says that three brothers, exiles from Argos, came to Macedon. There they served the king for wages as herdsmen in charge of his horses cattle sheep and goats. The simplicity of the royal household is emphasized as illustrating the humble scale of ancient monarchies. Alarmed by a prodigy, the king calls his servants (τοὺς θῆτας) and tells them to leave his country. The sequel does not concern us here: we need only note that work for wages is referred to as a matter of course. The same relation is probably meant in the case of the Arcadian deserters[107] who came to Xerxes after Thermopylae, in need of sustenance (βίου) and wishing to get work (ἐνεργοὶ εἶναι). But the term θητεύειν is not used. And the few Athenians who stayed behind[108] in the Acropolis when Athens was evacuated, partly through sheer poverty (ὑπ’ ἀσθενείης βίου), would seem to be θῆτες. It is fair to infer that hired labour is assumed as a normal fact in Greek life. For the insistence on poverty[109] as naturally endemic (σύντροφος) in Hellas, only overcome by the manly qualities (ἀρετὴ) developed in the conquest of hard conditions by human resourcefulness (σοφίη), shews us the background of the picture present to the writer’s mind. It is his way of telling us that the question of food-supply was a serious one. Out of her own soil Hellas was only able to support a thin population. Hence Greek forces were absurdly small compared with the myriads of Persia: but the struggle for existence had strung them up to such efficiency and resolute love of freedom that they were ready to face fearful odds.
The passage occurs in the reply of Demaratus the Spartan to a question of Xerxes, and refers more particularly to Sparta. In respect of courage and military efficiency the claim is appropriate: but poverty was surely characteristic of nearly all the European Hellas, and the language on that point is strictly correct, probably representing the writer’s own view. It is also quite consistent with the statement[110] that in early times, before the Athenians had as yet driven all the indigenous population out of Attica, neither the Athenians nor the Greeks generally had slaves (οἰκέτας). The context seems to indicate that domestic slaves are specially meant. I do not lay much stress on this allegation, urged as it is in support of a case by one party to the dispute: but it is a genuine tradition, which appears again in the later literature. In the time of Herodotus there were plenty of domestic slaves. Accordingly he finds it worth while to mention[111] that Scythian kings are attended by persons of their own race, there being no bought servants employed.
Herodotus is a difficult witness to appraise justly, partly from the occasional uncertainty as to whether he is really pledging his own authority on a point, partly because the value of his authority varies greatly on different points. But on the whole I take his evidence to suggest that agriculture was carried on in Greece either by free labouring farmers employing hired men when needed, or by serfs. I do not see any evidence to shew that no slaves were employed. The subject of his book placed him under no necessity of mentioning them: and I can hardly believe that farm-slavery on a small scale had died out all over Greece since the days of Hesiod. Nor do I feel convinced on his authority that the poverty of Greece was, so far as mere food is concerned, as extreme as he makes Demaratus represent it. When the Spartans heard that Xerxes was offering the Athenians a separate peace, they were uneasy, and sent a counter-offer[112] on their own behalf. Not content with appealing to the Hellenic patriotism of Athens, they said ‘We feel for you in your loss of two crops and the distress that will last some while yet. But you shall have all this made good. We, Spartans and confederates, will find food for your wives and your helpless families[113] so long as this war lasts.’ Supposing this offer to have been actually made, and to have been capable of execution, surely it implies that there were food-stuffs to spare in the Peloponnese. It may be that I am making too much of this passage, and of the one about poverty. The dramatic touch of Herodotus is present in both, and I must leave the apparent inconsistency between them as it stands. The question of Peloponnesian agriculture will come up again in connexion with a passage of Thucydides.